By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

A South Andros business owner yesterday said companies will have to “go to plan B” once the area’s sole bank cuts operational hours at its Kemp’s Bay branch to just one day per week from Monday.

Julian Gibson, owner/operator of Eula Nixon Convenience Store and Last Stop gas station, told Tribune Business that while he is unsure what the overall impact will be from Bank of the Bahamas’ decision it will certainly be an inconvenience.

Mr Gibson said business owners and residents in South Andros now have to “fight” the BISX-listed bank, which is 82 percent majority owned by the Government, and demand additional days. But, in the short-term, they will have to rely on the ferry service to Mangrove Cay to make deposits given that its Bank of The Bahamas branch will be open four days per week.

“It hasn’t taken effect yet, that’s the good thing. I was able to make a deposit today, Tuesdays and Fridays, but I’ll soon have to go to plan B. If we need to make a deposit, I guess we’ll have to send it to Mangrove Cay on the ferry or wait until our day,” said Mr Gibson.

“The Mangrove Cay people wouldn’t allow this to happen to them, and we in South Andros don’t want this for ourselves either. We’ve got to fight. We have to put up some kind of fight and demand that they give us more than one day.”

Mr Gibson added that reduced banking hours will also prove chaotic as it currently takes about 30 minutes to make a deposit due to long lines. “If I go to the bank with a deposit I can be in line for up to 30 minutes, and it’s not like they’re there all day. There are a lot of people to serve within their operating hours,” he said.

Leon Lundy, the south and central Andros MP, last week spoke out about Bank of The Bahamas’ decision to slash operating hours at its Kemp’s Bay branch to just one day per week while leaving its Mangrove Cay location open four days per week.

He said the move was a “disservice” to Bahamians still reliant on branch banking and another example of how Family Islands and their communities are “treated as an afterthought” by the commercial banking sector and others.

Mr Gibson said the residents on South Andros have grown “tired of talk” and highlighted that the road paving project on the island has still not been completed. “South Andros people are tired of talks. They said they started to contract for the road, but to this date, all they’ve been doing is scraping it. This must be a new type of way you do roads. Every three months, you scrape,” he said.